Video Transcript: Disciplines to Meet God and Beat Satan

Video Transcript - Disciplines to Meet God and Beat Satan (Dr. Feddes)

Bible reading this morning is from Matthew chapter four. We're going to read the first 11 verses. Then Jesus was led out by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the Son of God commanded these stones become loaves of bread. But Jesus answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. It is written, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands, they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone. Jesus said to him, again it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, be gone Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. This ends the reading of God's Word, and God always blesses His Word to those who listen.

I want to focus with you today. On spiritual disciplines to meet God, and to beat Satan. When we think about spiritual disciplines in certain kinds of practices in our life, to grow stronger spiritually, those really are two primary aims is to draw near to God, and to be able to resist the devil. And so anytime that you're involved in a certain practice or discipline to develop your heart and your spirit, you should have those things in mind, how can I become closer to God? And how can I be prepared and strengthened to face the difficulties and temptations that the evil one and his demons will send my way? In James chapter four, we see those two things brought together drawing near to God and resisting the devil. James writes, but he gives more grace. Therefore it says God opposes the proud But gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

What a wonderful sentence draw near to God, and He will draw near to you isn't that the cry of your heart if you've got the Holy Spirit of the Lord living in you at all the the invitation drawn near to God, and that God would draw near to you, and in that process of submitting to God and drawing near to him, being able to resist the devil, and having him flee from you. That's quite a statement to not only resist the devil and you won't fall for his tricks, but resist him and make him turn tail and run. Those are some wonderful invitations from God's Word to be people who draw near to God and experience Draw near to us, and to be people of power, who resist the devil and make him run away. Now, before I say more about spiritual disciplines and what we ought to be practicing, I don't want to short circuit what the Bible passage itself is about. It's a very dangerous thing when you're a preacher and you kind of know what you want to say anyway, to jump to that and not let the text and its main message, control what you say. And I do want to speak about spiritual disciplines, and what we can understand about them from this passage. But that's not the only thing the passage is about, or even the main thing. The main thing is what Jesus is doing, not about what we need to be doing. The main thing is about what Jesus is doing, as our representatives he's doing in this encounter with Satan. What humanity had always failed to do. Adam was tempted and Eve was tempted In the garden, a beautiful garden where nothing was withheld for them from them except the fruit of one tree. And they failed, and they blew it, Jesus was tempted in a desert after having not eaten for 40 days. 

He wasn't surrounded by all the good fruit of a garden with just one tree forbidden. He was in a desert, and had not eaten for 40 days when the devil came to him, and Jesus resisted the devil and made the devil flee. He did what we couldn't do. And the Bible says that through one man sin, his act of disobedience, sin and death came into the world Romans chapter five, but through the one man's act of obedience, the many were made righteous. And we see Jesus' obedience really getting a launch here in the temptations and then completed when he resisted. Satan in another garden, the garden of Gethsemane where he was sweating blood and then went to the cross, as he was called to Do. So the great thing about this passage and one that we want to notice and glorify God for and to take to heart is what Jesus has done as our representative. He obeyed God perfectly. He defeated Satan. And because Jesus has done that, as our representatives, we believe in him and God gives us credits to us what our representative has done for us, he counts it as ours. Jesus has obeyed, and God counts all who trust in Jesus, as right with Him fully obedient. You've heard that repeatedly. 

But it's always important to keep that in mind. That's our justification. It comes in once for all, when you believe in Jesus, it's simply credited to you and it's completely yours, the obedience of the perfect obedience, of Christ, your representative. Now, there's another aspect to that into a lot of biblical teaching about Jesus all The Bible's announcement in the Gospel is, first of all, what Jesus has done as our representative and has done for us. And that's the heart of the gospel. But certainly the Bible also shows us the life of Jesus shows us his practices, so that he can serve also as our example, as our leader, Jesus' invitation is to follow me and to walk behind him in the same path he walked. And so he provides for us a pattern of life to imitate and as we depend on his spirit, as we practice his disciplines, as we pursue his pattern of obedience, then our character becomes more and more like Jesus' character. And as you've been reminded before, that's sometimes labeled by the theologians sanctification, and that's not a once for all deal that happens just instantaneously. That's a process. That's what's happening inside you as Jesus, your power. Your example is shaping you more and more to be like him, but never conceived. That was what Jesus has already done for you as your representative that's completed. And that's credited to you when you trust him. And you need to stand on that as your firm foundation for being right with God. And then the rest is going through this process of becoming more and more like Jesus, our example. 

So let's look, first of all, at what Jesus did as our representatives, and how he dealt with these temptations of Satan and overcame them. What's going on with these temptations? What in the world is wrong? If you're hungry, and you have the ability to do it to make a little bread? I mean, what could possibly be wrong with that? I know that was a head scratcher for me for a very long time. If you're hungry, and you want to eat what is so devilish about eating a slice of bread, and you know if you don't have a slice of bread handy, and you see Some rocks lying around that look kinda like bread anyway, just say, I'd like a little bread. And you have the power to do that. Why not? Well, Satan's temptation here is for Jesus to use his divine power to benefit himself. Jesus is here on earth to live as a man among men to take on our nature to be like us. And I'm not that good at snapping my finger and changing a stone to bread. Now, Jesus, on other occasions, did miracles with bread. He fed 5000 people in one shut by changing a few pieces of bread to a whole lot of bread. So he wasn't necessarily against bread production overall. But when he did his bread production, it was to benefit others, not just to benefit himself. And the temptation is, you know, you should seek pleasure. It's not fun to be hungry. You should avoid pain and the greatest thing in life is to have less pain, more pleasure and use whatever you've got to bring that about. And do whatever you desire. 

Even, you know if your father has another plan, and it makes it uncomfortable, Well, too bad about that. And besides, your father really doesn't want you to be uncomfortable, does he? He's a loving God, isn't he? So you have this kind of temptation. Now, some of you if you haven't been able to understand that first temptation, maybe some of you have at least seen a couple of superhero movies. If you saw the first Spider Man movie, he gets bitten by this genetically engineered spider and he gets these powers that he didn't previously have, where he's suddenly proportionally just a lot stronger, and has tremendous reflexes and has these abilities. And how does he want to use those abilities? Well, Mary Jane lives next door, and he hasn't been able to get her attention very well or is it Get her to really go for him. And she's going out with some guy that's got a fancy car. Well, he goes and looks through the ads and sees cars and some of them are too expensive, but he sees when he can pick them up for about $3,000. 

And then he sees an ad for wrestling, where if you can stay in the ring with what is his name, bonesaw Reynolds are some nasty character for three minutes, you get 3000 bucks. So he decides I got these powers 3000 bucks and the girl I gotta go wrestle this dude. And it turns out badly I mean, he went to the wrestling match. Things don't go that well. And his uncle tells him shortly before he dies, with great power comes great responsibility. And maybe those powers aren't meant just to win a wrestling match to get 3000 bucks and get the girl or if you haven't seen Spider Man, I'm a few of you may have seen the old Superman movie. Remember the old Superman movie. He's the manager for the football team and the waterboy. And they're throwing all their sweaty jerseys at him afterward and mocking him and laughing at him for being kind of a whimsical Clark Kent. And after, after all of them leave, he just grabs the football and kicks that sucker into orbit. And then he goes home and talks to his earthly father and his dad, and he says, I should start touchdown. Every time I got the ball, I could run over all these guys. And his father says, but son I don't think you have these powers to win football games.

And here we have Jesus with the powers to turn stones to bread, or to win wrestling matches and football games, I suppose if he wished, but maybe the Son of God doesn't have his divine powers. Just to do a few things that he happens to want to have happen for him. And so, Satan's temptation is really to use your power to benefit yourself. And Jesus knows that that's not why he came for his own benefit. He came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life. And so Jesus responds, it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Now, Jesus said those words while he was right back in the same wilderness, where those words were originally spoken, and they were smoking because Israel had spent time in the wilderness wandering, and they had lived on God's manna, and only a day at a time manna for 40 years. And God did that he said, so that they would learn that you don't just live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, a meal is less vital for your health than God's word. 

That's one The major points here, you need God's word more than you need your breakfast, or your lunch, or your dinner. Yes, fasting isn't one of the disciplines that you like, at least try this out. For any day, you skip Bible reading, skip eating, you will either start reading the Bible more, or perhaps eat less, and experience great weight loss. The point is, if man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, then Jesus is resisting Satan with that fact, by saying, I am here to do God's will. And the word that came from the mouth of God for me is that I'm here to help others and to save others and not to use my miraculous power to benefit myself. The second temptation, take a leap of faith brings him up to the highest point of the temple and tells him to take a leap of faith because it's written. You know, he starts throwing the Bible at Jesus, that the angels are going to look out for you and they'll catch you. And you won't even stub your toe on a rock. What could be better? And as a fringe benefit, if you do that in front of everybody who's gathered at the temple, they say, Whoa, isn't this guy something?'' So, Jesus is tempted to just do what again, other humans don't jump off the highest point of the temple and expect to be caught. But Jesus, you should have some special privileges. I just ignored the good, ordinary sense of what's healthy and what's not and took a leap. And if you can find a Bible verse to justify it so much the better. 

That's how the tempter often does work is just a rip Bible verse way out of context, and then tells you to do something crazy. And say that you've got the Bible to support you in it, and then expect God to prevent what ordinary would happen to Smash. This is a danger of course for many of us where we have our own notions, which are quite different from Gods of how to live, spiritually healthy and godly life and yet we expect God to swoop in and catch us before we hit the rocks. Not a good idea. Now Jesus knows the Bible, of course better than Satan and knows how to use it. And he says, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. There's a huge difference between faith and folly. Sometimes faith does call you to go beyond what your common sense and what seems rational and, and why sometimes faith will call you to take a certain kind of leap, but not just a stupid leap. There's a big difference between faith and just stupidity between trusting God, which Jesus did, and showing off just doing something to make a spectacle. And so Jesus resists that temptation. The third temptation is instant results and big results. We get smaller temptation from Satan, we want littler things and we're willing to cut some corners to get there. Jesus is offered the entire world, all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory. always got to do with one little itty bitty thing. Bow down to Satan.

Well, in one sense, that is a pretty good deal. Yes, what you want is what God can give. And you can get it quicker from another source. Why not? It's a very good rational argument. If God is not what you really want, if what you really wanted is what God pays. Then whoever can give it to you works as your God, do what works. And that's a great temptation. Because many people have their notions of what God ought to be like and what God ought to do for them. And the focus for us maybe more on what we can get out of it, then on simply the fact that God is God, that God is worthy to be worshipped and to be loved. And if we could get the little world by some other means, then God that would and get sooner. 

That's a pretty appealing proposition. not appealing to Jesus, because Jesus loves his father. And Jesus knows the Word and the Word says, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. So get out of here, Satan. God is to be worshipped for his own sake, not because he can give you the world. One other just a little itty bitty thing you want to keep in mind. Satan lies The world was not his to give. He can sometimes be labeled the prince of this world, or the ruler of this world. What it really means, of course, is the ruler of this little temporary, rebellious regime in this world, but he's not the one who can permanently give all the kingdoms of the world to anybody who's got a bad habit of lying. And so it's very important, of course, for us to understand that to that when Satan offers big promises and quick shortcuts. It has a way of not turning out that way. He promised Adam and Eve that they would be like God. Yeah, that turned out well, didn't it. So when he's tempting Jesus, just just remember that he can make it sound and make it feel a certain way unless you're built up to resist him. So those are basically the three temptations and how Jesus resisted those, and he did so in the strength of God. And also by the power of disciplines that he was practicing at the time now, we've seen what Jesus does as our representative, he obeyed God perfectly, he resisted the head on attack of Satan himself, he continued to do so at other points in his life, he lived a perfect life, he defeated Satan by dying on the cross and taking away the power of sin over us, and he rose again from the dead. And for all those things, he's to be trusted, he is to be thanked, he has to be praised, because he's earned our justification and given us access to God again. 

And now I do want to turn to Jesus as our example, because he's our strength for daily walking. He's our inner power by the Holy Spirit, and he needs to be imitated, and to be followed in the sanctification that he's working in. And part of that sanctification is simply training for godliness. Hebrews five talks about those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice. To distinguish good from evil, you notice that Satan quoted scripture to Jesus. And Jesus could tell that it was phony baloney. It wasn't just that he had a Bible verse. And Satan had a Bible verse and who's to know which one applies, but he had powers of discernment, to know which was which and distinguish good from evil in their application. And it takes training to get it takes constant practice in the Bible, and in living to really sharpen your powers of discernment. Timothy speaks of training yourself for godliness in First Timothy six or seven. And what is godliness? Well, we've spoken to this before. I want to just highlight it again briefly. It's becoming like Christ. It's Christ in you the hope of glory, growing closer to Christ in your experience, growing like Christ in your character, and being like Christ in your eternal impact, including your impact of being able to make the change hours of evil flee.

Now Tom Landry, longtime coach of the Dallas Cowboys had something to say about his job. I understand and see the game I understand the Cowboys did win last night for the first time in 13 years. They didn't go 13 years without a win. Tom Landry was coach and they weren't 17 years in a row in the playoffs. But anyway, Tom Landry knew a little bit about football coaching. He's also a devout Christian. He said the job of a football coach is to make men do what they don't want to do, in order to achieve what they've always wanted to be. There are certain things you may not feel like doing at the moment. But if you want to get from here to there, you need to do them and the coach's job is to make sure you do and so really, it may be helpful to think of Jesus as our coach in godliness of someone who is making us and helping us to do things that we really might not feel like doing, at least initially, in order to become We really do want to be. The apostle Paul says every athlete exercises self control in all things I disciplined my body and kept it under control. And so we're training and Jesus is our example. He's our coach. Now what was going on with this whole desert thing? 

Jesus isn't the only one who spent some time in the desert. He is certainly the greatest, but not the only one. And others among the great people of godliness did so to Moses who spent 40 years in a desert as a shepherd before he was ever called to go back to Egypt and lead the people. He spent 40 days fasting on Mount Sinai in the wilderness and communing with God. Elijah went for 40 days without food after God had given him special food and he went to Sinai to and spent 40 days in God's presence. He had been getting burned out. And Elijah was a mighty Prophet, but when God wanted to restore him. He took him out from all that buisiness and all that activity again, and brought him out into the wilderness to be alone with God. And he came in a great storm, there was a big storm and the mountain was shaking, and all of that. But it was only when it was completely quiet. And then a small voice began to talk that Elijah knew that it was the voice of God. And he was in God's presence. John the baptist. We just read about him again this week in our Bible reading plan from Matthew, John the baptist lived on our very spare diet, we'll put it that way. If you are really into grasshoppers for breakfast, you could enjoy that diet, but he lived in the desert. He lived on what he could find to eat in the desert. And he lived out there largely in isolation except for when crowds came out to him to be baptized and to hear his message. 

But this man of the desert, according to Jesus' own words, was the greatest man Whoever lived prior to the time of Jesus himself, and so there was something about him. And then of course, we've got Jesus Himself 40 days fasting in the wilderness, and then confronting the evil one, the Apostle Paul's another example. He says in Galatians, chapter one, but after his conversion, I didn't go immediately to consult with other people. And he didn't go right to work in all of his alpha solich work either. He says, I went away into Arabia. Arabia, is a vast desert. And after Paul and had that vision of Christ, he went away into a vast desert to meet God, to rethink everything. He thought up to that point, because when you're an enemy of Christ, and suddenly you're transformed, you've got some thinking to do. And you've got some meeting with the Lord to do and Paul did that out in the desert. Now I'm not going to go into great depth in any of these examples, except to say That certainly something went on in the wilderness in the desert. That was very powerful in the lives of great people of God. I want to highlight what you might call desert disciplines or disciplines of withdrawal that can be helpful. One is solitude being by yourself without any humans as companions. Another silence, no noise, no diversions. No conversation with other people. Just quiet. A third is secrecy. Nobody's around to impress. It's just you. And God. And maybe the devil. But there's no spectators. if you blow it. Nobody will be watching.

It's just you and then fasting. You can't medicate yourself with a few snacks. You can't deal with food as something to kind of give you pleasure or comfort as a lot of us do. And so these are four desert disciplines that we can think about a little more solitude, being by yourself. Sometimes, you need to be by yourself to find out what your self is, if you have one, because you can get so unmatched in everyday life and in your connections with people and things around you that after a while, you're just pulled by the strings of your connections, and you're not really a self or a soul anymore. And you're also very vulnerable and weak. If you have never been able to just be by yourself in God's presence. Now Dallas Willard in his book on celebration or the spirit of the disciplines, he mentions mice. Now it's always insulting for people to be compared to lab rats and mice. But anyway, he still mentioned the example of mice. And he says among mice, it takes 20 times as much of an amphetamine to kill a mouse by itself as the dosage required to kill mice when they're all in a group, if you give now people who do these experiments I don't know what's wrong with him anyway, but anyway, this is this is what the experimenters have done, and they would give dosages of amphetamine demise. 

And if they gave them to a whole group and a few started dropping, they just all went down dead. In fact, they found that you could have a mouse in the group that you didn't give any amphetamine to and would just die with all the rest of them. But if you had a mouse off by itself and you gave it a little thousand phentermine, giving some more would take 20 times as large a dosage to kill one by itself as it does. It was just part of the crowd. Now again, you could draw the wrong conclusion from that and say, Okay, now I'm never going to church anymore. Because I'm stronger alone. That's not the conclusion to draw from this. In fact, in all of these, there is a time to be alone, and a time to be together there. These are not the only disciplines, there's corresponding ones. There's time to be alone, a time to be in fellowship, there's a time for silence. There's a time for witness. There's a time for secrecy. And there's a time to be together and make things known. There's a time for fasting, there's a time for feasting. But my point here is there is a time for these for these disciplines of the desert and solitude has the advantage that you don't just drop like mice, when everybody else around you is dropping, we live in an evil age. If you are just part of the scene, you're going down, it's that simple. 

If you're just going to go with the flow, I can tell you where the flow goes. It goes over the waterfall So we need to learn to be alone with God to draw near to Him so that He will draw near to us. And there just is no substitute for that. Sometimes that means daily withdrawal for a brief time to be alone with God. Sometimes it may well mean that you just block off a day on your calendar to be away from everybody and everything else. And it's just you, thinking about God and your condition before him, and how you can become more like Christ and how you can gain strength in resisting the evil one. So vital discipline if you go through life and you're never alone, then you need to be now. It's considered one of the great punishments of the prison system to put somebody in solitary confinement for any length of time, because we cannot bear to be alone. But if you want to grow strong as a person, being alone can do that. And very closely related to that solitude of the desert when you're out there or is where nobody is, is it's pretty quiet out there.

You may hear a few animals now. And then you may hear the wind a little, but you're not going to hear people. And you're not, by the way, solitude in our day, solitude doesn't automatically go with silence. If you want solitude and you go out into the wilderness, with your iPod, your computer, your cell phone, and all of the other goodies that you can pack along with you. It will kind of squander any of the benefits of solitude, just because you're still noise, noise noise. And so silence is a discipline where you put away the noise. You put away the conversations. You put away all the diversions and you just clear out the noise. Now again, that's not An easy thing for most of us to do. I think I've mentioned before, the case of Edward, Edward was a guy who was a petty thief, he was convicted on one of his convictions of $27,000 in credit card fraud, because he was going on buying sprees with other people's credit cards. Now the judge has got a little better understanding of Edwards' situation and of his case, and he found out that Edward had seven televisions, one for every room in his house. And he could never be away from televisions. And he was getting all of these ads and these commercials and he always got this feeling that he just had to have this. And he had to have that. And then he, oh, man, he just had to have something else. And so the judge sentenced Edward to 10 months without television. 

He could go to work. Whenever he wants to leave his home he can leave his home to go to a house. Worship if he so desired, he could do a variety of things. But he was not allowed to have any TVs in his house, or to watch any of them. Edward and his lawyer sued the judge for cruel and unusual punishment. He would rather sit in a jail cell for an extended period of time if he had some access to a TV than live for 10 months without a TV. That's how allergic a person can get to silence and to not having all those images and noises constantly flashing at you. And that's the extreme case also the outcome. If you're taking in all those thousands and thousands and thousands of commercials 24/7, it's very hard to resist greed and the desire for more, and your happiness depends on just getting what you have there. So solitude by yourself, silence avoiding noise, not having conversation with others in secrecy. That's a tremendously important discipline. Jesus talks about that in some detail in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, Don't do your acts of righteousness in front of others if you can help it. Don't do your fasting with lots of advertising. Do it. So only your Father in Heaven knows what you're doing, and let him be your reward. That's really the key. 

The purpose of secrecy is to stay focused on God. One of the most important spiritual disciplines is to develop who you're like, and what you're like when nobody but God is watching. What if Jesus hadn't said I'm hungry? I want bread. Shazam, I've got my loaf of bread. Nobody. If it had been a wrong thing to do. No other human would ever have seen him do it. Somebody has defined character as what your life nobody's looking for. And the purpose of the discipline of secrecy is to learn to wean yourself from having to impress others, to wean yourself from doing things just because somebody else wants you to or doesn't want you to do it. And one of those whole purposes of doing things in secret is just so you're not so addicted to other people's approval, and then fasting, that can be refraining from food. That's the most common and basic meaning is just going without food for a while. Many of us depend on food, sometimes food and our other things go together. I find that I eat a lot less junk and snack food if I don't watch TV. So maybe that's not true for you. tv and food go together. For me, and less TV often means less food. 

So that may not be a connection for all of you. But sometimes, food is used not just to sustain our body But as as just a way to reward ourselves for this or make ourselves feel better about that, and abstaining from food for a time, is to break that connection and get mastery over your own body. And even more important than that, to just keep reminding yourself again and again, that Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Now, fasting is not a wildly popular discipline in our society, either. Some people I like very much said, Well, I tried fasting once or twice, all I could do is think about food. And so I figured it wasn't doing me any good. And so I didn't do it anymore. But yeah, that'll that's probably what will happen the first few times you fast if you'll think a lot about food. It's one of those things. There are many things in life that don't produce fabulous results the first two or three times you try them. Sometimes you need to do something on a more regular and disciplined powder for a while and then when you really do need to fast either to express repentance or To seek God's guidance or simply to sharpen your prayer life, the food itself is not that big a deal because you have done that. been there done that often enough so that it's not so ingrained in you now, do not imitate Jesus in trying 40 days and 40 nights, your first time out of the gate or probably ever, that's pretty exceptional, although there you can live without food for 40 days and 40 nights. But that's getting to be the upper limit. And a 24 hour fast Friday is a better place to start and skip breakfast and lunch in a day and then have supper and and if you have some time. 

On that day, maybe it can be the same as your day of solitude and silence or maybe it's going to be an ordinary work day. But then you know that at the end of that day, you're going to have half an hour where you can really spend that with the Lord and your hunger for him will be sharpened by your fasting. There are many, many variations on this and another form of fasting thing is just deny yourself the TV thing. Or there are just certain things you say, Fine, I think I've got too much of that. And I think I'm finding it hard to live without that. It's just got to go for it. It's not a bad thing, but I'm not able to handle it in the proper amount. It's overkill and it's killing me. And so then you break your tie to it and, and put it away for a while. Now one of the purposes of these desert desert disciplines is detachment. This may sound odd. This is a passage from the Bible that I haven't heard preached on a whole lot, and I have to confess I've never preached on it. 

First Corinthians 7:29-31, the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have lives live as though they had now and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they have no dealings with, for the present form of this world is past. In a way, now, he doesn't say, you divorce your wife, or you just get out of the business world, or you never cry anymore. But there's something about you that even when you're doing it, it's as though you're not doing it, that you're not locked into that as your only identity. If you've lost someone you love, you mourn, but it's not the only thing. There is that sense of grief and loss. If you're happy and things are going well, okay, enjoy the nice fringe benefit, but it's not the main thing about you. And that kind of blessing isn't going to last either. Your marriage, even if you're faithful till death, is not going to last because it will end the death and your dealings in the world. 

They're, they're necessary for the moment to make a living and interact with others. But there's got to be something where you're able to walk through life doing all those things, and yet, be able to do them with a sense of distance. have not been immersed in and completely attached to the affairs of the world and of everyday life. And that is something that you can't just want and wish for. That kind of detachment takes a certain kind of discipline where you spend time with God and you separate yourself from all of that. And so and then when you return to it, you are not dominated by it. But you more and more are able to be proactive, rather than reactive. And then when you come back, the irony of all this is you're actually better at all those things. Solitude can make you better at relationships. People who for years have been trying to send you either by a subtle message or by open criticism, what's the matter with you and it just never gets through. If you spend a bit of time by yourself and consider who you are. In God's presence, it may help you to see things that previously you just kept lying to yourself about, you become more aware of your faults. And you also become more able to draw on God's power. 

So being able to be by yourself and not being addicted to being around other people all the time can actually make you better at being around other people, and wiser and more measured and more self controlled in your dealings with them. Silence can make you a better speaker. If you learn to shut up, then when you do open your mouth, you might actually have something to say. And when you do have something to say your words are going to be better chosen. And that's one of the great things about a discipline of silence. It can when you spend time in silence by yourself, then even when you go back into the world, you might have kind of a resolution yourself. I'm going to talk less than I used to, and listen more. Those of you who are around me know that this is something that I need very badly. I have a bad habit of interrupting people. They're halfway through their sentence. And already, I have figured out what they're going to say anyway, I have something quite a bit wiser to say or at least much more important, and so I will let it be known. One of the ways to fight interruptus is also to cultivate silence and to try to choose your words more carefully and in a more measured way. 

Secrecy can make your witness stronger, because the thing about secrecy is you no longer have to impress other people. And so you can do it when you do something in their presence, or when you say something to them. Your goal is to advance their good not to make an impression on them. Sometimes those are two very different things. The things you do to try to make them just feel a little more comfortable around you or think more highly of you are quite different sometimes than the things that you actually could do tomorrow. Bring blessing to them. You've got your eye more on God and more on their well being. And last on Oh poor me if they don't think highly of me. So secrecy can actually make your witness stronger. 

It also means of course, that when you have doubt you have developed a depth and strength in your own character, then your witness packs a wallop if you're all words, you know if you're all blowing, no go, I'll talk no walk, then your witnesses kind of a waste of time anyway. And fasting can enrich your feasting and suffering always tastes better if you haven't had breakfast lunch for one thing, but it also means that it tastes better because now you've learned to focus on the giver a bit more. And when you've learned to focus on the giver, man, those gifts are just that much better when you're enjoying them. So those are some of the disciplines of the desert. And of course another discipline that Jesus exercised here was not just being out in the desert alone, quiet and fasting but also the sword of the Spirit Bible intake. can be able to use the Bible. He dealt with Satan as a man not just as God. He dealt with Satan by quoting the Word of God. It is written, it is written, it is written in the Apostle Paul tells us that the word of God is the sword of the Spirit. It's our main fighting weapon. Psalm 119 says, Oh, how I love your law. It's my meditation all day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. When God's commandment is ever with you, when you read the Bible, when you memorize key portions, when you meditate on the great stories may not memorize them, but you think about them, and they're present to your mind often and then God's word makes you smarter than the enemy. 

And you've got that sort of the spirit and you're able to try them in God's wisdom and in God's power. So in summary, let's return to that James four passage and connect it with that story of Jesus' temptations when you are detached from the world, and you're wielding God's word, that's a way to meet God, to beat Satan and to transform your world. Romans 12 says, Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And you renew your mind by detaching it from this world in conformity to it. And by being renewed in the Word of God. And when you're meeting God, and the context of James, here's just a little bit more of that passage, then I quoted earlier, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity or hatred with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world, makes himself an enemy of God. Are you beginning to understand now, why disciplines of detachment are so important? The only way you can do the world any good is by being detached from it and then being able to return to it to transform it. He gives more grace, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you, draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. What happened with Jesus? Well, after it's all over, just remember this too, there comes after the time of testing the time of relief, of being refreshed and being rewarded, the angels came and were ministering to him. And when you walk with the Lord, when you discipline yourself, there are tremendous rewards. Whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him. So seek God. Be near to him, beat the devil. And finally just want to return in reverse order to what I said about Jesus. 

We've been talking now at some length about Jesus, as our example is tired of life, dependent on his spirit, practicing the disciplines and pursuing his patterns. of obedience and your character becomes more and more like kids. And that's, that's our guidance and our wisdom from God. But then we do need to return also to Jesus as our representative. Because as you listen to a sermon like this, you say, Well, I think I blew it here. I think I blew it there and the other two and here I blow it and I know that I'm going to blow it again. Okay, that's the way it is. Jesus, as our example, is a pretty intimidating example. I mean, in one sense, it's very inspiring and very helpful, but at another level, if that's all we had, were gardeners, and so returned to him often as your representative, the one who stood up to Satan and did what you could not do, who obeyed God who defeated Satan. And remember that God counts His perfection as yours by faith and that gives you the authority and the ability to when you fail, trust your representatives. And trust that it's all okay because of what he did. And then get up and get back to imitating His example. meet God and beat Satan. 

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the living word, our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank You Lord Jesus and glorify you for the strength of character that you displayed in resisting the devil that you didn't use your own divine powers simply for your own good that you didn't take any shortcuts, but you walked the difficult way laid out for you by the father, to accomplish your purposes in this world and to work out our salvation. We thank you for your great obedience by which we are made righteous. We praise you for that. We praise you for the example you have set and for the invitation to follow you. We pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit you will enable us to follow wherever you lead, and where we fail to count again on your finished work. To know that we are forgiven and pardoned for your sake, and then to strive again, to meet God to beat Satan. Lord help us to know how to get started. Help us to discipline yourselves for godliness and Lord lay on the hearts of each of us where best to begin that process and help us where we need it to be able also to encourage and consult with each other. Help us Lord to become more like you to know you better to enjoy you more. And when we go out into the world around us to have a sense of your radiance, all around us as we go, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.